The Chair of Manitoba Pork says positive developments in 2018 on the trade front are good reason for optimism during 2019.
The completion of the CPTPP, the renegotiation of NAFTA and Chinese and Mexican tariffs on U.S. pork by were among the highlights on the trade front during 2018.
George Matheson, the Chair of Manitoba Pork, observes there’s optimism that trade will continue to expand, as it has in recent years, which will benefit the Canadian pork industry, but it’s also important to the Canadian pork sector for producers in the U.S. to do well.
The fact that the Asian market is opening up with a gradual lowering of tariffs through the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership that Canada is part of is something that is valuable to us. On the other hand, for producers in Canada, we take the U.S. pork price as our price less freight, so not only is our trade agreements important to Canadian producers but we also watch closely the U.S.’s different trade agreements throughout the world, especially with Mexico.
We’re quite happy that the USMCA Agreement will really for the most part continue the former NAFTA Agreement. That was a quite a beneficial trade agreement to all North American producers.
~ George Matheson, Manitoba Pork
Matheson says there’s always room for optimism in the pork industry. He notes trade increases every year, world wide pork consumption increases every year, it’s a great product, a great source of protein, produced in a very sustainable manner so he’s optimistic the industry will continue to grow and prosper in 2019.
